The end of the Olympiad is in sight, the Welsh women’s team have reached round nine, and their captain is mildly hysterical at the prospect of facing Ecuador

Michael Healey

¡Dame tu mano
Y venga conmigo!
¡Vamonos al viaje para buscar los sonidos magicos
De Ecuador!

I wake up even earlier, in an even colder sweat from the obscene aircon, than normal.

ECUADOR!
doop doop, de doop de doop doop

These chiquitas can play. Looking over their games it’s all fabulous; one replies to Nd5 with Ne7-c8, intending c6. I’ve been playing chess 30 years and I’ve only just clocked that manoeuvre exists. 

ECUADOR!
doop doop, de doop de doop doop

They all play a bajillion things. Their board two, as previously reported, is insanely good. The best I can do is pick some of their more obscure lines and prep something simple. Fully rational terror combined with an internal pounding 90s dance anthem is quite something, let me tell you.

On the plus side we finally get a South American country, which means we’ve pretty much collected the set (barring North America and Antartica). Our arbiter is Spanish, so for once we have the feeling of being left out of the linguistic banter. Hiya is deeply mistrustful, while Liv will later claim her dairy milk chocolate (one of my main jobs as captain is to nick as many as possible, as often as possible, from the heavily guarded dispensary), has DISAPPEARED.

I’ve been to Quito, but Liv’s actually lived there for a couple of months, working in a children’s hospital. Their board two, Anahí Ortiz Verdezoto, who is gaining elo points like nobody’s business, is training to be a doctor. Board one has a knight tattoo on one hand – something evident on several chessplayers here. One Lithuanian, keen that no one miss her backless outfit , also has a chess queen tattooed on her upper back. Many have got henna tattoos. Indeed, after learning the Jersey captain got someone to come round specially to the hotel for all the girls, my team point out yet another of my deficiencies as captain. Sigh.

Liv plays a Petrov (or anti-Petrov, which doesn’t really make it anti-boring for those sitting next door), and gets a position we’ve looked at but where the nuances mean little to me. Hiya’s opponent sidesteps our prep with a Catalan. Khushi’s prep goes fantastically well, and she’s better and hacking away delightedly. Kim’s opponent has gone g7-5 early in an Italian, and I smile to myself – not something we looked at and this ain’t gonna be good. Kim replies with g2-4, in front of her castled king. She later complains I never told her g5 was a thing – having spent most of my chess life preaching the power of The Holy Move, I find this amusing.

Khushi gets overexcited and drops her e4 pawn, Hiya drops her d5 pawn, Kim is … whatever she’s doing, and Liv’s position is not helping with my serious issues drifting off. I dramatically stand up, shake the arbiter’s hand, and head for the 5pm shuttle. First however, I want to hit the Expo and see what’s happening there. 

It’s Sunday in India, and the crowds for the traditional day off are mental. There’s a queue going round the courtyard to get in for a view of Champion Hall. Everywhere are people, especially lots of purple lanyarded VVIPs. Whilst looking at some particularly uninteresting computer displays and soulless chess sets, I get huddled out back into the heat for my second interview of the day (back at the hotel a swarm had descended on my prep session with Hiya). Yes, everyone’s very friendly, I like the food, I expect everyone will be back to Chennai since it’s about to become chess capital of the world (Gukesh D is on 8/8, having knocked Caruana out of the top 10 yesterday). Now will I make this shuttle?

I feel a bit guilty, as I should, for abandoning my team so early. Fortunately Caissa punishes me with a shuttle which takes two hours to get back, going all round the different early finishers’ hotels. Khushi will last past move 50, showing incredible fight, and still beat me back, along with Kim and Hiya. While Liv’s game goes to and fro, I am accosted by a tiddly Tanzanian girl, who is delighted to practise her English on me and seems strangely taken.

Mariam tells me she only started playing in December, her life not going too well at the time. A distraction turned into a tournament, which led to an invitation to travel to another tournament in Kenya. Someone dropped out of the Olympiad team, and now she’s travelled here, her goals being to get a rating and win at least one game. Not only will she gain a rating, she’s on 4.5/9! I’m blown away by her story, as well as her constant questioning and smiley nature. When she leaves I ask how she’s going to spend the evening? “I have learned so much from chatting to you. I am going to work out how to keep you!”

Back at the hotel Kim is down, so I join her for our second KFC at the mall next door; being of Malaysian heritage, Kim thinks UK KFC is done wrong. I don’t know about that, but my popcorn chicken biryani is the hottest thing I’ve had since I got here. In pain I squeeze a ketchup satchet into my mouth, only to read the back – “Contains spices”. I nick a limey ice drink no one wants, containing lashings of masala. I can’t taste anything. The ice is cold though. The mall is unbelievably packed. There’s even a little train going round for toddlers. I try to get some pashminas, but my haggling is slightly dampened by someone holding a bag of KFC at the entrance to the shop. Having managed to get only a small discount, I once again become the moron who spends too much money. Liv has drawn, but could have won. Another whitewash averted.

The next morning Nick Faulks informs me Wales are safe. Nick is my source for Fide gossip and this is voting time. There are lots of controversies, one of which is a proposal to have non-International Olympic Committee countries removed from the Olympiad. It is defeated, so Wales, the Jersey girls and the rest live to fight another day.

Our next match is against Malta. Kim has the day off, so we are deploying our secret weapon – head of delegation Sarah Kett.The morning is spent training her in the Hippo, reckoning this gives her the best chance of long-term survival. Khushi manages to sit at the wrong board, forgetting she’s been promoted. Whilst wondering just how much trouble we’re going to give this arbiter, whom I previously joked with over Khushi’s en passant game in round two, one of the Thai girls near us collapses. Another medical emergency? No, she’s been trying to hide from a photographer and fallen off her chair backwards. It’s going to be a silly round isn’t it?

Khushi has a fine position, but tactics go wrong and she gets ground down. Sarah reaches a position where f7-5 will completely dominate the kingside, but she’s been told not to push her f-pawn. I smile and return to my book, Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith. Hold on, I espy an f5! Wow, she might win this!? Oh, but now the b-file has opened. And White can play Rxb7, winning a bishop. Never mind, two and a quarter hours’ survival is pretty good going. 0-2. Liv gives us a point. Now, it’s time for Hiya the hero!

Hiya’s position on two, against Maltese chess maestro Clarence Psaila’s wife Uranchimeg, is very blocked. Hiya seems to have dropped an exchange – or is this a genius trap, realising in this position the knight outdoes the rook? She plants the most tentacled octopus knight you will ever see on e4, before white grabs a hot pawn. Hiya concentrates, calculates and finds the way to cause her opponent the most difficulties. Time dwindling, White drops a queen. Then a bishop. Eventually White concedes. I never had any doubt – Hiya’s aristeia. 

After that late game we shuttle back to the hotel, eat and meet up for the final time in the rooftop bar. It’s a bit of a sombre occasion. Apart from anything else, the boys are lamenting missed chances against an Estonian side who arrogantly seem not to have prepped them. Two draws, including one for Alex Bullen against a GM, but it could have been more. 2-2 was kind of the perfect result for us today (not that I wanted Sarah and Khushi to lose). Instead of a harder final match and 1/2, we’re on for 1.5/2 and a tournament 50%. The men have Jersey of all teams, while we’re going back to Oceania – Fiji at 10am.

A morning spent sightseeing provides a fresh burst of energy, and the Welsh women’s team captain claims an unlikely scalp in the strangest of chess-playing settings

Michael Healey

On leaving the tournament hall I am asked by the Jersey girls whether I’m going to the Bermuda party; I suggest we don’t need a second English chessplayer making international headlines for partying violence. Despite sharing a hotel with Bermuda, it has nothing to do with them any more. Some of the Welshies attend and return in the wee small hours. The music is loud, the people many, the alcohol mixerless and the banquets of food completely unnecessary. Lorin D’Costa, the England women’s coach, manages to hospitalise himself. Otherwise I don’t have much gossip to report; find a cooler blog. 

I had intended going (even brought a suit out from the UK), but felt too fed up after the Tunisia match; especially as the party involved bussing back to near the tournament venue. I find myself up at 6am, my usual time in India to fret about the next day’s prep, and wonder why the aircon is so fricking cold. However, today I’m thinking about team morale. An Olympian friend back in the UK has suggested cake and alcohol. So I should make my semi-teen team alcoholic full-on diabetics, if Indian desserts haven’t already accomplished this. Such is chess. 

On the rest day, Liv is keen to Uber to the local Mahabalipuram temples early before the trips arrive. I agree to join. The Ketts and Greg Toczek, top board in the Welsh Open team, complete this daring dawn expedition. Everywhere are granite statue shops; before lockdown the sound of chipping was apparently 24 hours a day. Now things are quiet: a couple of tour guides, a few motorbikes and some stray dogs. The element of surprise has been achieved. Liv negotiates our tour guide’s price down, while I look embarrassed. The temples are in three sections, the Rathas being the most impressive. There are five separate temples in different styles, as well as an elephant, a lion and a lovely bull – all carved from one single rock. Properly impressive.

The cave temples are pleasant, with some very interesting carvings. The guide informs us of all the different gods and their families, but I’m more interested in the chimaeric ones. There are supposedly four different styles of lion; when I point out that one seems to be a griffin, that’s clearly not in the script. We move on to more temples and a big balancing boulder, which I decide would make a decent photo. I pull out my ever-present set from my sweat-covered backpack and invite Tim to play: then an Indian lady shows interest, and I suggest she plays instead. 

It turns out this is none other than the missing fifth India 2 player, their board two rested against my girls in round one, IM Padmini Rout! We have a quick game under the rock, and I recover some pride from that whitewash. Padmini is lovely, from a different part of India and has always wanted to visit these famous temples.

When we finish, a local journalist is keen to take my details – not the first time I’ve had to spell out WALES. I rejoin the others, and such is my glee at winning the game I spend an obscene amount of money on a local bit of tat by an interesting up-and-coming artist – a display of dancing gods, with hidden sections of what can only be described as “doodles” of animals and … well, porn. I can’t stop smiling, but Liv is livid with the price, quality and pornographic nature of my purchase. I explain that it means something different to me: forever after, when I flick through these crude pornographic sketches, I’ll remember my victorious rook endgame against Padmini.

The final temple, the largest, is by the sea. It is quite the “Thalatta! Thalatta!” moment; Trapped in the cruel circuit of hotel-venue-hotel-venue, we’ve only seen the sea from certain hotel room windows. Here it is for real, a beach with sand and waves and salty breeze. We have a paddle in the Bay of Bengal, whilst Greg strips off to his boxers and goes full Daniel Craig. We pose for photos with locals. How different life will be when people don’t think I’m incredibly famous. (To be honest, the pretty, freckly, blue-eyed Liv is probably the real photo target, but I grin just the same.) It’s been a great morning, and as we leave stuff is opening up, the tourists proper a-coming.

In the taxi back, Tim sets a Kobayashi Maru test. Should a captain prioritise:

1. Team result

2. Individual title possibilities

3. All-round team happiness through squad rotation and balanced colours

Thank goodness this wasn’t on the job application! First thing to note is that these are mutually exclusive, and that they can’t just be sorted out by muddling through ex tempore. I’ve heard enough about Olympiad teams dramatically imploding, causing players to refuse to play, leave, be banned or even switch federations. I acknowledge 1 and 2 are very important, but would prefer a happy team which will live to fight another day, rather than one which falls apart with several rounds left.

Thankfully with only four players proper, I don’t have to worry about colours, rotation and all that jazz. Back at the hotel one of our assigned volunteers is astonished not only that we met national heroine Padmini, but that I got a result against her. When she is shown my precious porno purchase, I quickly return to laughable moron status. It’s what I’m most comfortable with.

We are up against Saudi Arabia in round seven. They are a completely ungraded team, and we have little idea what we’re facing. Liv decides to chance a king’s gambit, the Saudi coach placing a hand over his face at 2. f4. A 14-move win. Hiya offers a draw to stop the rot, and we’re 1.5-0.5 up. My prep nearly works for Khushi and Kim; Khushi gets a fantastic position, but Kim’s opponent plays a sideline. After a frankly inexplicable game, Kim wins – she was due a bit of luck – but Khushi can’t convert and loses another endgame. At least my prep worked. More important, it is a win – a palpable win!

Round eight pits us against Ethiopia. Massively underrated, the top two boards can clearly move the bits; indeed their board one, Lidet Abate Haile, is having a fantastic tournament and took a WIM to rook versus rook and bishop. In the morning, Liv and I teach Khushi an entirely new system – which works! Unfortunately having got to a decent middlegame, she promptly misses Qd6, intending Qxh2#. It’s been a long tournament, and she’s had so many great games. This is pretty much her only big blip. Hiya as so often comes out of the traps at full speed, and then continues to absolutely railroad her opponent. A great show of dominance, proving what she can do.

Kim faces an early h6?!, which completely frazzles her. Soon her position is a mess, and she drops a piece. Instead of resigning, she shows Healey-esque lack of respect and goes into full-out cheapo mode. Her opponent is inattentive, and finds herself bizarrely losing either a rook or queen, then succumbs to the re-energised Chong.

Liv on one has outplayed her opponent in the opening with Black, pinning her up against the first rank wall; but White won’t give up. Liv overpresses in the centre, and things are going wrong. In time trouble the Ethiopian player makes a few unchoice moves and falls into a mating net. 3-1 from 0-1 down!

Those of age retreat to a hotel room and celebrate with some illicitly smuggled beers, kindly donated by Khushi’s dad. The Welsh women’s team is back from the dead!

A match that looked like a certain victory suddenly turns, and as the Olympiad goes beyond its halfway point the Welsh women’s team hits rock bottom

Michael Healey

Loss Win Loss Win – the predicted yo-yo-ing is in effect, and we’re at par thanks to the result (sans moi) against Namibia. As reward, next up in round five are the strongest chess nation on Earth (proportionately) – Iceland! Captained by international chess celeb and occasional London visitor Ingvar Johannesson, this will be a tough test. They’re all rated higher, have a WGM on top board, but they’ve been underperforming a bit.

Today brings the excitement of umbrellas – yes more free goodies, on top of our goody bags back at the hotel (set, cap, book, heavy ornament, badge, mask, hand sanitiser, XXlarge shirt, which presumably is in Indian sizing). Every arbiter of every match is receiving a dozen umbrellas, trying to stack them on their chair without rolling or dropping them, as if we’re about to enter some amazing musical number. Well almost every arbiter – the two countries surely most in need of umbrellas, Iceland and Wales, get nothing. Possibly they’ve realised these are really sun parasols; after two seconds of North Atlantic rain that lovely Chennai logo will have been obliterated. Liv is super-excited by the prospect of more free stuff. With my deeply mistrustful nature, I’m guessing they’re expecting rain.

The match against Iceland starts off well enough: their board one Lenka Ptacnikova sidesteps our prep, but the position is about equal. Kim on two has a near-repeat of her round one game, but might be playing it a bit more effectively. Hiya on three has a fairly level Scandi as White. Khushi makes a couple of early strategic mistakes and is making a quick exit on 4 against a WIM.

I’m reading The tale of Sinuhe and Other Egyptian Poems, a nice switch from the problems of chess captaincy to the problems of pharaohs, famine and death. The book seems quite popular; not only do I come back from a wander to find one volunteer engrossed, but later another asks my permission to read it.

Hiya’s game gets interesting, and she once again threatens to cause an upset. Kim is finally playing a position she’s comfortable with, and slowly outplaying her opponent. The WGM is looking concerned. Ingvar is looking concerned. He’s also looking damn cool as a fan comes up to ask for his autograph.

It’s all kicking off now. Liv is (over?)pressing. Kim is looking groovy. Hiya is finding some snazzy manoeuvres. A man is reading my book. No one asking for my autograph.

Hiya goes wrong, then wronger, but she’s still alive. Kim’s opponent is imploding, but so is Liv. This is tense. Hiya refuses a rook endgame, but that was by far her best bet to draw. Within a few moves it’s over. Liv goes down meekly. Kim finishes her game and gives me an exhausted hug after her well-earned first win – “Fiiiiinally”. I congratulate Ingvar, who complains about all these crap teams only giving Iceland a tough game, but collapsing against all the other seeds.

Back to the hotel. Tomorrow is the last day before the rest day. After my unrestful rest day the previous day, I’m quite looking forward to vegetating. We’re all ecstatic for Kim, who had suffered so badly. Everyone is up and running; we can smash up whatever poor team faces us next.

From ice to fire. Tunisia, coached by Mehdi Bouaziz, who I played years ago in a Maltese IM norm tournament. The Tunisians were using it as a warm-up for the Olympiad, and would come to play dressed in pyjamas, agree a draw in their games, then go back to bed. The other three are still in the Open team across Scum Hall, one now a GM. At the time I scored WDDL, although one was a shamefully prearranged “grandmaster draw” to help Zoubaier Amdouni successfully obtain an IM norm. He still seems to be an FM however. I have to live with the guilt for nothing.

We’re not quite sure what to make of Tunisia. They clearly know how to move the bits, but sometimes they play some truly bizarre stuff. We definitely don’t know about the board three, as her last three games (and indeed this one) don’t transmit. Perhaps she’s just super-clumsy with DGT boards?! Is this how teenage chessette rebels rebel?

I’m forced into some team photos. It’s drizzling a bit. Excellent. Wales will have home conditions today.

Liv has deliberately chosen a dull Petrov where she can bore her opponent into submission. Kim has played a gambit, and obtained yet another optically magical position. Hiya has played exactly our prep, and must be a bit better as Black. Khushi is doing wonderful things on bottom board, playing with some real vim in the opening stages.

My next book – Balzac’s the Black Sheep (make your own Welsh jokes) – is not really doing it for me, so I go for a wander, well pleased with our progress. This might be 4-0! I always like to look over the teams we’ve played and the UK teams (those in Scum Hall anyway), but also those we’re staying with. Zimbabwe in particular I’ve been impressed with, while Chile and Bolivia are clearly doing really well. Given that hotels are allocated on performances in the Open (men’s performances basically), it’s possible that the chess gender disparity is less in South America. Ecuador’s WIM Anahi Ortiz, whom Kim and I met on the flight out from Heathrow, is having a good tournament. Indeed, English women’s captain Lorin D’Costa warned me she had been with him, Ed Player and Stefan Macak in Barcelona, smashing up 2200s like they were nothing.

Time to mosey back. Wait, is this the same match? Kim is using up a lot of time on simple moves. Hiya is throwing pawns forwards. Liv is looking drawish. Khushi is still better heading into an endgame, but misses a little spite-check nuance. This is not going well.

Hiya decides to jettison a piece rather than put up with a bit of grovelling in an endgame – that might work on juniors, but this is a step up in class, with 30-second increments. Kim decides to exchange pieces a pawn down with a space advantage, and her lovely position is coming apart at the seams. Liv is winning, but her opponent stubbornly keeps going, knowing her defiance is helping her team-mates. That first decisive game can act like skittles in these matches. Khushi has a winning endgame, but does she know how to go about winning it?

Hiya loses. Kim loses. Liv’s opponent eventually downs tools. It’s all up to Khushi, who knows what she has to do and heroically turns down draw offers. Play on both sides alternates between perfect and … imperfect. But now White has a pawn on h6; she can do this! And her opponent is worrying away her time.

Back on the shuttle home the Welsh men are watching this game, saying as long as Khushi doesn’t do such and such, which would lose, she should win this. (Elsewhere a certain Surbiton-based journalist, not noted for his powers of analysis, thinks it’s a dead draw.) I’m doing my best to psychically project the moves into Khushi’s mind.

She doesn’t do such and such, she does this and that, finding another way to miss the win. From a pawn up to a pawn down, it is now a dead draw. We lose the match, a shame for Khushi but … There’s a stab of pain in my chest and I audibly inhale. Khushi trades rooks. She’s completely and utterly busted.

Khushi is crushed. I’m furious with Kim and Hiya. Back in the hotel lift a friendly Ugandan chessette asks how my team got on. “Well, two are being shot in the morning.” The yo has not yo’d. There are tears before cocoa all round. In a movie, this would be that dramatic all-is-lost moment.

In which the Welsh women’s captain takes a day off to explore the ‘real’ India – and quickly wishes that he hadn’t

Michael Healey

Last night Sarah Kett, head of delegation, wife of strong Welsho Tim and technically my fifth player, offered to captain today’s game instead of me. I grabbed this chance to have half a day off and get some extra sleep. Sarah suggested I go for a swim. However my own crushingly stupid decision-making let me down, as so often both in life and in chess.

Today’s Namibian opponents seem much better than their flimsy ratings. Liv points out their coach is quite strong (stronger than someone else anyway), so we work on his openings in addition to theirs. Let’s hope every other team are prepping Orangutans, Chameleons and Borgs like crazy! Again they’re in strange order, Khushi playing the highest rated on four. They’ve dropped “Jolly” on one. No jollies today.

I wave the teams off, then head out in my freshly laundered outfit, proselytising to the people of Eggatur-Chennai the vital message of my black T-shirt – “MEH”. Sneaking past security, I pop next door to the mall with four tasks – camera memory card, mouthwash for all the sweeties, check out the mall, be somewhere other than the hotel or the venue.

First, the computer and tech shops: none has camera memory cards. Hmm – this may be an issue in the modern smartphone world. Another reason for me to despise the things. In the Spar supermarket I confirm there is no alcohol to be had, find my mouthwash and head to the till. They ask for my mobile number. I look confused. They examine the back of the mouthwash bottle. Suddenly it dawns on me that the thing will contain alcohol. Another member of staff comes to help read the ingredients. I’m going to be denied mouthwash, aren’t I? I mean, it’s one excuse for the dentist. Hold on, it’s all OK, and my card goes through for whatever the local price of my illicit purchase was. Tick.

I wander around the mall. It’s mally. There’s a food court, a Starbucks, an arcade, various clothes and home shops, but nothing else looking likely. The place is wonderfully lit, spacious and aesthetically pleasing, although the escalators are not the simplest (or working). 

I bump into three ladies from Team Jersey, including the mother of Daisy Carpenter who remembers me from the flight out, and chessette e-celeb “Lula“. Looking her up now I realise she is another Orangutanger! There is so much we could have discussed … whole schools of potential theory lie unmined.

I congratulate them on their draw with Sudan yesterday, and on the men’s result – they went down 1.5-2.5 against a strong Tunisian team, three of whom I played many years ago in a Maltese IM norm tournament. Saris are on the menu for the Jersey women – should I be buying my female friends back home saris? Or the men? Can I add clothes smuggling to my various occupations? I’d have to lose some chess books from the suitcases, but saris are pretty light, no?

Returning to the hotel I mention my camera memory card failure at the front desk. This is a mistake. A triple question mark blunder. After much discussion, they send me out across the road with a helpful man. Crossing an Indian three-lane main road is not so simple. There’s a lot of stuff coming at various speeds. We make it safely across, and thus begins my own special odyssey. The first phone shop says no, but suggests the next one up the road. Who suggests the next one up the road. Who …

Much like Tooting or any London high street, a lot of shops are phone shops. There’s the occasional snazzy café or restaurant, but there’s a hell of a lot of phone shops. We march on, baking under the 2pm sun. The road is hot. The sun is hot. I think of the Richard Bachman (Stephen King’s darker half) short story “The Long Walk”. The journey is endless, feet follow feet, and no phone shop is going to have a camera memory card. We are told of a magical place beyond the bridge yonder, a larger shop that may have one …

I encounter my first Indian beggar child. She quickly makes her way to my side and lightly grabs my arm, making noises you’d have to be inhuman not to pity. My guide shoos her away. As a tough tube-travelling Londoner, I’m regularly cold-hearted to beggars. But this little girl is something else. Maybe it’s because this isn’t my country. 

We reach the legendary pedestrian bridge which once seemed a heat mirage. Underneath, in the shade, a family have set up camp. A dog, distended nipples showing, is chased off by a motorbike. How much of this side of India we are missing. We reach the air-conditioned electronics store, my own Scheria. They tell us of another shop across the road. Of course Odysseus must reach another island. Let us hope the gods do not punish these modern helpful Phaeacians too.

My pilot guides us back across the road, where a stallholder asks me how much memory I want. He actually has one! Several! It works! And not even any suitors to massacre. I reach for my weapon, trusty card.

Declined. They must have stopped it after the mouthwash. I can do nothing but laugh/cry and apologise to my guide. Tears won’t come, because I’ve sweated them all out. The memory card comes out of my camera, and we leave to return to the hotel. In utter embarrassment I try to make conversation, which results in discussion of Indian politics. Other than Gandhi and Modi, I have no clue who these people are. Sarah suggested a swim – in my current state I probably could have fooled her. 

It is possible the heat has led to some further deterioration of my physical and mental well-being. A shower and I collapse. Stretching for the laptop, the girls are doing OK. Khushi seems to be playing an exciting pawn sacrifice seen in McShane-Lalic 2003, attempting her own improvement on the England board two’s efforts. I don’t remember prepping Khushi for this, but I am very tired. Maybe I’m more of a genius than I thought.

The others look to be doing OK, all having positions much as we discussed this morning. I manage a nap. Reanimating, Hiya has won a nice, clean game. Perfect, I’m delighted for her first (non-default) win. Liv, whose opening position Stockfish disliked, has very sensibly swapped off to negate her small disadvantage. She outplays her opponent as the pieces come off. 2-0. 

Khushi is having a whale of a game, Mr Fish’s evaluation bar is getting super-excited. She’s played a blinder, a really good, classical, pieces-to-the-centre-working-together crush. Khushi’s first win too, and in under 30 moves!

Kim’s opponent, clearly prepped to the eyeballs, plays a sensible opening, but White has a definite edge. A few inaccurate moves and the advantage evaporates, but now Black is starting to play. Once again I suspect Kim has had to face the secretly strongest player on two, despite a 1200 rating. Black is using her ponies in a distinctly Healeyish manner, as in our morning analysis of Healey-IM Large (Kingston Invitational best game prize-winner, thank you very much). 

Black’s advantage keeps creeping up, and Kim misses little chances to equalise a complex endgame. Finally some pawns come off, and the task looks easier. Kim has managed her time as well. A draw. 

So we win the match – without me! Was it because I wasn’t there? Was I holding them back, or distracting my girls? Or was my pointless death march under the Indian sun actually suffering on their behalf, the universe aiding them to balance out? Something about karma? Perhaps now is the time to build the new MEH religion.

Our hero, captaining the Welsh women’s team at the Olympiad, is completely exhausted – and his team have only played three rounds

Michael Healey

Three rounds in and I haven’t been this emotionally drained since that Polymorph attack. How we’re meant to survive another eight I have no idea.

A routine has developed. After breakfast we have a general coaching session on the restaurant floor, followed by half-hour slots. This is partly because lifts will only go to the floor you are keycarded for, with stairs – if they exist – barred to guests. We are also supposed to call lifts using toothpicks. Eventually the Olympiad officials round us from lunch and try to shove us on buses for the venue, 30-odd minutes away, along a road white- and black-washed to form a terrifying constant chessboard. Murals, posters and mascots form a permanent passing background, the overall surreal effect akin to the film Yellow Submarine. The local governor’s photo is placed above a crappy wooden chessboard I would never let kids play on as pieces just fall over. It is in any case set up wrong. The cows and goats don’t seem to notice. There are neon signs, road bumps, waterfowl and roving gangs of dogs.

The venue itself is fairly overwhelming, a mass of people which makes the introvert feel quite uncomfortable. Also, for a game based on spatial awareness, people don’t seem to have any concept of moving slowly, stepping aside to pass, or stopping before blind corners. Doors are both ways, and as someone who pretends outwardly to be a polite Englishman you can often spend a whole minute trying to get through.

In round one, my Welsh team were up against India 2: titled 2300s all the way down. The darlings of India (well, second string of darlings). We are in Hall One, chamber of champions, the special place of super-GMs and their amateur fodder (England women are in scum Hall Two). Cameras and filmcrews, space to wander about, fans up and down the walkway pointing and staring at four suited-up national heroes, facing my four red-jacketed Welshies. In my captain’s speech, I say there’s way more pressure on them than there is on us; two of them are over 30, so more dead brain cells than alive; and 2300s are rubbish anyway. Accuracy of captain’s speech: precog.

The match starts strangely when Khushi, the Welsh board four, plays an inaccurate opening, but her opponent decides to go after a pawn. Then the 17-year-old Indian prodigy huffs. Then she puts her head down. She looks fed up, as my 13-year-old continues to play sensible moves. The 2300 is eating up time and entering what can only be described as “a strop”.  

Olivia Smith on board one has the line she wanted, and her opponent is making strange moves. She must be better?! Kim on two is a bit worse, but not much against the IM. Hiya on three has exactly the position she wanted on the board, which we knew the computer said was +1. Hiya the 1600 is definitely better against the 2300 WGM! I am torn between grinning my head off and bewilderment. I can’t help but fist-pump moves, stalking up and down behind the team like a prowling tiger, hoping that aggressive energy will feed into my girls, or that my scowling will intimidate the titled women. Probably it has more the look of a hunched Winnie the Pooh, but hey – that might distract India 2 as well.

Khushi and Kim continue to survive. Liv’s (short for Olivia, geddit) position looks great. Hiya gets too much fury radiation, and flamethrowers insanity all over the board. Even I, the resident lunatic of London chess, am raising my eyebrows. This is savagery like I’ve never seen except in the pages of game collections. On the Indian commentary there is apoplexy at what is going on. Are India 2 going down??

Sadly the incredible rush can’t last. Khushi’s knight get trapped. Kim’s time gets low. Hiya’s flames gets dowsed. Liv remains, struggling away in an endgame, apparently drawn but beyond my feeble understanding. Instead she loses, so we gain zilch for our efforts. Harsh.

Meanwhile, Wales Open team (the boys) were drawn against fourth seeds Spain. And wow did they give them a tussle. Just seeing Shirov in person was amazing, but he seemed to have taken offence at my red bandana, focusing all the rage of his position on to my forehead. The boys did incredibly well, threatening an incredible upset, but eventually went down to the 2700s. Have a quick chat with chess writer and all-round luminary Malcolm Pein, who kindly suggests that if it hadn’t been for the Welshos’ heroics, his article would have been on the Welshettes. Great pride from today’s performances; definitely the best lost match I’ve ever been part of.

A new day. I receive an email from tournament chief arbiter, England’s own Alex Holowczak. Accreditation is to be done by today at 2pm, or there will be a fee. I reply to ask what is this accreditation? He doesn’t know, it’s just something they’ve told him to message us. Liv is desperate to get us Indian sim cards, so we can all Whatsapp each other. I use one of the lift-toothpicks to try and open the port of a smartphone I’ve brought (Hiya had to point this out to me). This does not work, so I go in search of a paperclip from reception. I do hope this isn’t actually the camera hole I’m poking.

Round two: Palau. Pretty flag. Their openings on the databases make little sense, but they can clearly play if given the chance. Suspicious board order. Location: Hall Two, near to the doors for refreshments/toilets, and close to the spectators. Captain’s speech: calm today after yesterday’s insanity. Hiya, in particular, should picture Yoshi, a Japanese gardener of Bonsai trees. Calmly and quietly, she must snip at the position. No chainsaws and flamethrowers today. “But I’m playing the Sicilian.” “He’s a Sicilian Japanese gardener,” I say. “He looks after the Mafia’s Bonsai trees.” Kim’s task is to stay ahead on time, unless she gets a position which requires time investment.
Accuracy of captain’s speech: well Hiya’s board is a default, so pretty calm I guess?!

It does rankle that Hiya has to come all the way to the venue then go straight back (or not so straight, the shuttle bus system being less “every 10 minutes” and more “sitting for an hour fed up and powerless in the face of constant prevarication”). This default system seems particularly idiotic. Oh well, one to the good, even if I’d have liked to see Hiya play. The Palau team are lovely, and teach us the word Alii! (Hello!). Apparently they have no word for goodbye; Maybe they never say goodbye.

Liv wins a nice, simple game, although with one slight inefficiency distracted by the possibility of an early shuttle home. Possibly we need to move her out of sight of the clock. Khushi wins an early exchange, then proceeds to block the position up. The game seems to have been cursed: the aircon tries to blow their scoresheets and pieces off; the Palauan player forgets to press her clock, causing Khushi worry. Then Khushi employs en passant on the c5 pawn, dxc6 – only c7-c6 was the unorthodox move two. The arbiter notices, the game rewinds five moves to the illegal move, time is added but the clock refuses to restart. Opponent offers a draw; Khushi offers a draw; there is much debate; our neighbouring arbiter looking on giggling with me; our arbiter hoping to be rid of this troublesome pair. After more discussion, draw! Never mind, both are off the mark, and we’ve got the points to win the match, hurrah.

Kim gets the position we all dream of, pushing knights back and gaining a true olympian centre. But, as some wise coach once said, “With a great centre comes great responsibility”. A motorway pile-up in extreme slow motion, Kim’s position goes from optically perfect to an explosion with limbs everywhere. No one deserves this, but it is a great experience to learn from. I wince as she recovers once, twice, three times, but the final blunder is too much. Black wins. Kim is devastated, and we all feel the same. A win for the team, but in the ugliest manner possible. Drinks in the hotel rooftop bar (for those of us of age) very much needed. It boasts a view of our locale, heaving with lights and heat and noise and everything you would expect from urban India. Kim is kept away from the side.

Round 3: Belgium. We’re outrated by a cumulative 1800+ points. The Belgians play something different each and every game. Fantastic. Location: Away from the doors, but by the arbiter’s station. Spectators, children and noisy infants. Captain’s speech: Keep calm, remember your prep, if they play something odd just roll with it. Sensible chess. Accuracy: Maybe I am still speaking Palauan. 

A little Vietnamese woman barges me out of the way, a new system of sticky red dots having been introduced. Everyone must have a red dot. I ask if tomorrow we will getting a different coloured dot? She looks at me as if I’m mad. Dot the dot lady whizzes around the hall, the first wave of stressful distractions today will offer.

Barely have we started and I storm off into the tournament hall, absolutely furious with myself. In prepping Khushi, I have overwhelmed her with lines and ideas, but failed to cement the basics of her opening. Within half a dozen moves Bxf7+ has won a pawn. The fury of round one is back, but now turned inwards. 

Hiya seems confused by her opponent’s offbeat try, getting herself in tangles and repeatedly moving her queen. Kim has gone for a Benko, backing herself despite never having played it before, convinced her opponent will repeat some innocuous line we briefly practised rather than take the pawn. I presume Liv’s secret prep is working; her opponent seems a bit thrown. But now she is eating time. Is there really a d6 pawn on?

It takes me a long time to calm down from my utter failure this round, stalking around Scum Hall grinding my teeth – more good news for the dentist after my constant intake of Indian sweet things. Thankfully, matters improve. Khushi’s opponent is trying to finish the operation, but using not a scalpel but some kind of washcloth. Kim is again eating time, but at least she’s in the game. Liv is playing wonderfully, her experienced opponent playing some inexplicable moves. Hiya has stabilised the position, and her opponent is looking very worried. I resume my round one hulking presence between occasional mini-naps. During one snooze there is a tap on my shoulder. A member of the spectators is leaning over the barrier – can he have that bottle of water?

During one of my waking-walking moments, I look up to a gasp worthy of an Edgar Allan Poe. One of the male players, 50 metres away, reaches out across the board in agony, his hands clenched in frozen agony. He collapses over the board and spills on to the floor. A crowd forms. There are no shouts for a medic; no clocks stop. The tournament continues more or less as normal, and I can see the man’s legs shaking. I offer up a prayer, hope, and try to extend a spiritual forcefield around my girls. Hiya’s lust for victory in a position I suspect was dynamically level has led to her being checkmated. I take her off to watch Liv, away from rescue operations. 

It is hard to know what to think. I’m well aware that this has happened before at Olympiads, but playing on like this seems callous. My players barely seem to notice, which is good I suppose. Out of the corner of my eye I see a spectator grinning, up on tiptoes trying to see what is happening. In fact they’re all standing up now, trying to get a look. I feel quite ill, sip my Coke and close my eyes. Eventually the man seems to be taken out by wheelchair. Thousands of volunteers and police officers, but where had the paramedics been? 

For the second time, a Belgian male player turns up on our side of the table. I walk up to him, flick his badge, angrily bark “Belgian” like a Teutonic officer of old, and motion for him to go around to the other side. He looks confused. I point again and explain, forcefully – he is Belgian, this is our side, he should be behind his team not facing them. This registers and he apologises. I have a new batch of angry energy to feed my girls. Adam Hunt, the Welsh Open captain, is amused by this encounter. It’s not often you get to tell a 2400 off.

Khushi finally folds, her longest game ever by a wide margin, holding off her opponent rated over 500 points higher for nearly four hours. Kim also concedes, having battled to a rook endgame but playing much better than yesterday. Liv is left, and I wander off to try not to distract her. The position seems winning, her opponent short of time, but there are many paths to examine.

I wander over to the Welshos. At one point they had looked extremely good again, against Paraguay’s GMs. They go down 4-0, a terrible score from the positions they had. Well Liv will win, then we’ll have outscored the men at least … Idly wandering back Liv is clutching her king. And I can see why. Somehow Black has fluked a tactic, and, when the king moves, a bishop sac will see a pawn through. She later tells me she was not only in shock, but continued to hold her king because she couldn’t recall which square it was on. Her rictus grip seems to last forever, and I swear into the emptied myriad rows of boards. 

Thankfully all is not quite lost. Liv recovers, and makes a draw against her higher-rated opponent. Apparently for tiebreaks just one draw is better than a whitewash, so we go out happier, ready for our nightly arguments with the hotel shuttle service. Next stop Namibia, whose players include “Jolly” and “Patience”. This might just be the match we need right now.

A Kingston star is captaining the Welsh women’s team in the Olympiad which has just got under way in (or, rather, near) Chennai. Here is the first of his regular(ish) reports from the pinnacle of team chess

Michael Healey

A “failed-to-deliver” message has just appeared in my inbox, from the Indian visa agency, presumably bumping around for days in cyberspace screaming for my attention. Thankfully I am already here in Chennai, visa-d up at the last minute. Serves it right to get ignored, after seven hours of internal screaming and a desperate last-ditch, hopeful rush on my part to get to, of all places, Hounslow. 

At Heathrow I bumped into Nick Faulks, south-west London chess stalwart and Bermudean, and met Kim Chong, one of my Welsh team, in person for the first time. Despite my offering her several chess books, she sensibly decided to invest in sleep. I opted for whisky and coffee, doing some “chess work” (vandalising books with coloured biros) and completing the entertaining The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.

The young ladies next to me on the plane, Yasmin Forbes and Daisy Carpenter, are part of the first ever Jersey women’s Olympiad team, powered by the sheer force of their board one, streamer “Lula” Roberts. Among their tens of thousands of mobile photos were their team outfits – sponsored by chess.com, Chessable and a fintech. “Puma pulled out though”, they tell me. Quel dommage! I looked down at my BA-supplied Shirgar Welsh butter and wondered what could have been …

From Yasmin’s dad, Garry Forbes, I learned much about the Jersey chess scene and the attitude of “small nations” (who have their own 10-nation league – apparently Wales want to get in, but are “too big” – maybe lose Anglesey?). The Channel islands, for their size, have always seemed to have properly solid teams, but the likes of Andorra and the Faroe islands are as orcas in a garden pond. Small nations also get representation in the Candidates’ cycle – will we one day see the world title contested by someone who is willing to cross the North Sea for four hours by boat just to play one game? It must certainly breed determination to avoid draws among those Faroe islanders – and a hardiness to weather conditions.

Teenage girls being what they are, the flight wasn’t the quietest, but I was very impressed to see them hack into the airplane’s console and play games against each other while the rest of the plane slept. After a slightly rough landing (you never want to see a member of the cabin crew looking panicked, especially with only her big eyes showing behind a mask), we disdainfully charged past a sea of queueing, plebeian non-chesso travellers, ran the early-morning gauntlet of helpful volunteers and intimidating soldiers, and flopped exhausted on to a coach with Team Eritrea. Cue much bowing and namaste-ing and demanding selfies by airport volunteers.

The sheer levels of manpower and resources being thrown at the 44th Chess Olympiad are astonishing, especially given the rushed bidding process. Yet more astonishing is the number of people wanting selfies with chessplayers, but apparently here we’re all celebrities. The volume of suitcases I’ve brought is worryingly diva-like, but they really are mostly full of chess books.

We left Team Eritrea at a hotel near the airport, and reached our own, halfway to the tournament venue – the Four Points by Sheraton in Mahabalipuram, which is about 30 miles down the coast from Chennai. Supposedly, the strongest teams are closer to – or even at – the venue, England (and, ahem, Jersey) among them. We have been told not to leave our hotel except under armed escort. As I suspected, most of “real India” will have to be seen from the shuttlebus window. Alex Bullen, one of the Welsh team in the Open section, escaped and brought back news of roving packs of dogs on the beach. It’s a real-life Plato’s Cave situation. With us are Uganda, South Korea, Bolivia, Chile, Zimbabwe, Timor Leste and Nick Faulks’ Bermuda. Yes – Bermuda of the famous “Bermuda party”. Oh dear.

Hotels, each filled with special Olympiad staff, are booked out with free accommodation, internet and meals so tasty I will certainly be even larger on my return to the UK. There have been small issues: one of the Welsh team’s luggage has gone walkabout in transit; various rooms have been switched; and I remain technologically incapable. But overall things have been going unexpectedly smoothly (so far!). 

Yesterday, the Chennai branch of the Welsh chess lending library opened, and I did some coaching sessions with Kim and Hiya Ray – a gloriously underrated 1600. It resembles the feeling of being dealt a “shiny” in a football card pack. She is going to take some stopping this one.

Past midnight I was still blitzing practice openings with Kim, before demanding she watch a GingerGM video about one of my games (coaches are very powerful). Morning brought a phone call which I nearly died trying to get to from the shower – “Yes I am aware there is breakfast, I went yesterday!” – and another quick coaching session with Hiya.

The Welsh men’s coach, IM Adam Hunt (wow, did they luck out there!) led the willing to the opening ceremony; the unwilling – me and the wasters of the men’s team – were having a rest. The coffee here is pretty strong, and I’ve been living off it for several days. Khushi Bagga, the Welsh women’s No 4, has arrived, and I’m promised my board one, Olivia Smith, from Mumbai soon. Tomorrow the event proper starts and Wales are up against, gulp, India 2, a team playing on home soil and full of titled players. Time for another coffee, I reckon.

A glorious queen sac can be irresistible and fans will always applaud it. But winning the game is even better – a lesson I learned the hard way in this totemic position from early in my playing career

Michael Healey

An instructive position! Context later, but what would you, as White, do here? Do you long for the security of exchanged queens? Qxb8, Ne4, Rhe1 or maybe even f4 straightening out the doubled pawns? White is after all a pawn up; the rest, as they always say, should be a matter of technique.

Should White keep the queens on with Qg5, then point everybody at g7? Surely Black’s kingside couldn’t survive the firepower of White’s entire army? Or is this a mirage?

Is Rd6 your choice, preventing the queen exchange with an awkward self-pin? Dominating Black like a sumo wrestler sat on a cat?

Or is there something else – something which makes your heart beat faster, dreaming of glory. A taste of immortality. A portal in time to the great chess romantics of the past. To be included in great tomes of tactics books and legendary sacrifices. A kiss from Caissa herself? Can White play Qxf6?!?!

Let’s split the options into four:

• The Dull – f4
• The Daring – Qg5
• The Dominating – Rd6
• The Dramatic – Qxf6

Bet bet bet now! (Obligatory Banzai! music). Betting ends.

Now for some background.

A long time ago, I had started work as a chess teacher. In an effort to test this new-found professionalism, having spent most of my chess life up to this point hacking and worshipping the g5 square, I entered a proper chess tournament (as did future team-mate FM Julian Way). The tournament went bizarrely well. I finished joint fourth with IM Chris Baker in a very strong field. GM Keith Arkell came first, netting the princely first prize of £100.

In round seven I was paired with White against FM (and future GM) Michal Matuszewski, the pre-tournament dark horse. I had been having a strange tournament, scoring my first ever win against an IM, but also suffering in a couple of terrible games. I was very, very nervous, and then shocked to find myself in the above position having played some offbeat nonsense and invested very little time. Here I sank into thought. What to do?

Thanks to my friend and chess history devotee Kevin Henbest, I was thoroughly familiar with the game Nezhmetdinov-Chernikov, surely one of the most beautiful queen sacrifices ever played:

Now, back to my game. Somehow I was a pawn up against an FM, but here I was with a chance to emulate the great SuperNezh himself. My usual calculation was failing me completely; the sacrifice was like a black hole drawing my thoughts away from every other line. Qg5 and Rd6 looked good, then dangerous, then drawish and seemingly dissipating my advantage, then a blur of lines I couldn’t concentrate on because THEY WEREN’T THE GLORIOUS QUEEN SAC!

After attempting to consider the alternatives I returned to stare longingly at Qxf6. I couldn’t see the win, but felt it must be there. Surely only a coward would shy away from such a move? Having taken nearly an hour, I punted.

The game went as follows:

A few months later, proudly showing this game to my friend, FM Thanasis Tsanas, he responded with utter disgust. “You were winning! Why would you play this? Karpov would never play such a move!”

I had been fully expecting praise, maybe even light applause, for my bravery. Yet here was an FM telling me off! Something in me, a crazed romantic, got a lesson that day. Rare and entrancing as a queen sacrifice is, it should not come at the expense of the position. Chess wins are not the result of hit and hope.

What would I do today? Well, older and wiser, I now realise many games between strong players are decided not by tactics or queen exchanges, but by domination – controlling the board and not allowing your opponent’s pieces space to breathe. Rd6 is the key move, and the computer agrees. While the other moves should win with perfect play, Rd6 is the truly brave move – self-pinning, calculating to see that everything is working tactically, and having faith in one’s pieces (and scorn for your opponent’s prospects). 

Rd6! What a move!! Who needs queen sacs?!

Being quick on the draw can be completely rational in certain circumstances and where prize money is at stake. Just do the maths

John Foley

The re-emergence of weekend tournaments has drawn attention (no pun intended) to the use of draws. Chess purists would say that you should always try to win a game. By contrast, game theorists would say that you should always try to obtain the best payoff i.e. financial outcome. This divergence of perspectives gives rise to different draw strategies. We need to set aside the emotions and make a rational case for seeking a draw as players reach the last round.  It is more rational to be realistic rather than optimistic.

Last-round strategy

Let’s say you are in the fortunate position of coming into the last round of a tournament in joint first place, you are paired against someone with the same number of points and you are both a point ahead of the chasing pack. Let’s make this more concrete and assume that the first prize is £400 and the second prize is £200, and that these are the only prizes and this is shared among those in the top places. These figures are not atypical on the English chess scene. Not a lot of money, but enough to give pause for thought for an impecunious chess player.

What is the right draw strategy?  There are three outcomes arising from the game:

You win:          sole tournament victory and £400

You draw:        joint tournament victory and £300 (being half of the total prize money)

You lose:         zero 

The game theorist says you need to consider the probability of each outcome.  As a first approximation, there is an equal chance of a win, draw or loss. The “expected value” of the game is therefore:

(⅓ x £400) + (⅓ x £300) + (⅓ x 0) = £233

It is rational to offer a draw because you are guaranteed a return greater than the expected value from playing the game out. You avoid the possibility of defeat and get a share of the pooled prize money.  You are £67 better off than leaving it to the vagaries of a contested game. To express this in percentages, you get a 29% improvement in expected prize money by agreeing to a draw early on.

Young and ambitious players may prefer to slug it out. Youth knows no fear. Or they may lack objectivity and overestimate their chess skills. More seasoned performers will assess the opposition and, unless they are clearly superior, will often seek a draw.  Tournament organisers are wise to this temptation and seek to impose measures designed to avoid early draws. Nevertheless, the economic incentive remains. 

Penultimate-round strategy

By a similar argument it can be shown that, based on a reasonable set of assumptions typical of local weekend tournaments, if the tournament leader accepts a draw in the penultimate round, their expected value of the prize money is £267, whereas if they take their chances and play out the game the expected value is slightly lower at £256. The tournament leader can thus secure a small financial margin of £11, on average, by taking a draw in the penultimate round against the nearest challenger. That’s the price of a couple of beers if you live in London.

The outcomes can be summarised in this payoff matrix. This shows that it is always advantageous to seek a draw in the last two rounds. This decision must be made prior to or at the outset of the game. Try for a win only if you have grounds for believing you can beat the odds. Once the game is underway, then this analysis is superseded and depends upon the chances in your current position. Then the conventional strategy applies: If you are ahead, then go for victory; if you are at a disadvantage, try to get a draw.

There are more substantial benefits of taking a draw before the final game. Nimzowitsch, in an article titled “The Technique of Tournament Play”, explained how he won Carlsbad 1929 ahead of Capablanca and others due to taking short draws to save energy.  The message is to save your efforts for the last round,when you may also have another drawing possibility.

Offering a draw can also have a psychological impact. Your opponent may believe you are lacking in confidence and therefore start focusing on you rather than the board. They may lose objectivity and take a more risky line. As a result, you may outperform original expectations. It is not as if you are bluffing. You are taking a rational approach to winning prize money.

We should acknowledge the legitimate fear that taking a draw could become habitual. We all know players who have a reputation as draw specialists. They are the chess equivalent of people who hug the middle lane on the motorway – ultra-cautious and annoying.

However, what is being advocated here is highly circumscribed. Firstly, the prescription is only relevant to Swiss tournaments where there are only a few top prizes and there is a shared prize pool for people scoring the same number of points. If you are in an all-play-all, then try to win each game. Secondly, it only applies to those two or three people in the lead – if you are in the chasing pack, then try to win your game.

The Sicilian Defence can go horribly wrong, but this lifelong adherent argues that its variations offer rich rewards if you find the lines that suit you and learn from the occasional disaster

Alan Scrimgour

Part 1: Alarms and excursions

“Alarms and excursions” is an archaic expression meaning confused activity and uproar. I cannot think of a better description of the Dragon and Najdorf variations in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ulysses’s odyssey only lasted 10 years, while my journey with the Sicilian Defence has lasted more than 50. I first played it in 1965 at the age of 14 and lost in 19 hectic moves. To be honest it was barely recognisable as a Sicilian. I could have safely been two rooks up, but instead I ended up resigning when about to be mated on the next move. My opponent that day subsequently became one of the world’s best bridge players. 

I decided that I needed to learn a proper Sicilian variation, and opted for the then fashionable Dragon. I played my first Dragon the following year and lost. This time I accepted an unsound queen sacrifice and then resigned, thinking mate was inevitable (it wasn’t and I should have drawn). Otherwise, I had five fairly happy years playing the Dragon before giving it up when keeping up with theory seemed too demanding. 

Game 1 illustrates a number of the common Dragon themes, especially black sacrifices on f3, c3 or sometimes e4. The game was played in a qualifying tournament for a place in the Scottish students’ team. There were four players and we played each other twice. Both of my games with David Watt were Dragons (I did say it was fashionable) and in the first I lost, falling into a Nxe4 sacrifice. In the second it was my turn to sacrifice.

Enter the Najdorf variation – theory-wise this was frying pan to fire – which I played throughout the 1970s, despite losing my first game with it. As if the normal mainline Najdorf wasn’t exciting enough for me, I chose the Polugaevsky variation, which could lead to a position where White first sacrificed a piece on e6, followed by another on b5 for a ferocious-looking attack. I had the position after move 13 three times, losing the first, winning the second and drawing the third. Game 2 shows my victory.

If this has been too exciting for you, in part 2 I will show you my experience with more solid (for the Sicilian) variations.

Part 2: Looking for a safe harbour

Spoiler alert: there isn’t one in the Sicilian (but don’t let me stop you looking).

In the 1980s I moved to the more solid Scheveningen variation, and yes I lost my first game with it. This is the variation that I have played over a longer period and with most games. Statistically, I have done better with the Dragon and the Najdorf than the Scheveningen and the Taimanov, although I do have a plus score in all of them. I estimate that overall, I have played against stronger opposition with the latter two variations. 

Game 3 gives a good example of Black’s counter-chances on the queenside, illustrating an unusual potential mating pattern.

“That is no country for old men” – W B Yeats.

So, in my old age, I started looking for a more sedate variation, hopefully where I would not be mated in under 25 moves (if only – I have actually achieved this in all four variations). This led me to the Taimanov, often called the flexible Sicilian, even The Safest Sicilian (Delchev and Semkov, 2006).

Finally, I did not lose my first game with this variation – it was a draw. The Taimanov is flexible for Black, but it also leaves White with many options. Game 4 shows how Black may succeed against one of the more ambitious attempts.

Part 3: Epilogue

I mentioned earlier that in the 1960s and 1970s I played fashionable Sicilian variations. Game 5 was also in vogue at the time, with theory developing quickly. Just how quickly I found out the hard way.

The main reason for including this game is that, to the best of my knowledge, it is the only one of my games to feature in two books – Chess Olympiad Nice 1974 (Keene and Levy, 1975) and The Najdorf Variation (Geller, Gligoric, Kavalek and Spassky, 1976). OK, I admit it – it does allow me to do some heavy namedropping. 

It is also a game of which I am proud – it was played in round 1 of the Scottish Championship of 1974 against my old schoolmate and eventual Scottish winner that year (and several others), Roddy McKay. Roddy had recently played in the Nice Olympiad and had seen at first hand the Levy-Garcia game, with its Nd5 sacrifice on move 18. The sacrifice had been played before, but Levy found an improvement at the board. I cannot recall how many minutes (maybe 40 or 50) I took over move 18, but it was just as well that we played 40 moves in two and a half hours in those days. I also discovered later that my 21st move improved upon previous theory.

Annotating your own and other players’ games is a crucial part of helping you develop your analytical skills

John Foley

At the end of last year, Peter Lalić – one of Kingston’s highest-rated players – embarked on a series of blitz chess tournaments which saw him play an intense sequence of 45 Elo-rated games in six days. He performed extremely well and won the blitz tournament at the London Chess Classic on Sunday 5 December with an impressive 9.5/11, half a point ahead of Harry Grieve and two points ahead of grandmaster Keith Arkell, who was the top-rated entrant (2398). His overall performance exceeded his prior rating. We would (perhaps self-regardingly) like to attribute this to the new disciplines imposed by Kingston Chess Club – regular opponents and very detailed game analyses.

Peter was so exhausted by his week of top-level blitz that he mooted the idea of someone else annotating his games, all of which remarkably he was able to reconstruct from memory, and the club offered this opportunity to the members as a challenge. Here are three of the annotations that resulted: by the verging-on-master Michael Healey; by me, a strong club player; and by the rather more engine-dependent Stephen Moss. With only five minutes for each player, one cannot expect deep analysis, but nevertheless each game brings out some lessons.

The other aspect which is relevant is that Peter is averse to online chess and hence has not got into any bad habits. The theory is that, by taking chess seriously, even blitz moves are of higher quality: the surfeit of online blitz may lead to a routinised form of play. Time spent studying is more useful than mindless play, and time spent analysing and annotating is always time well spent.

Annotating a game tells two stories: the what happened and the what might have been. The first story is about how one player outwits their opponent at a critical juncture. One should not be tempted to present the moves with the benefit of hindsight – all moves are played under pressure and even an obvious move may require careful scrutiny. The second story is getting beneath the surface to carry out a post-mortem (or should that be post-ludum?) where we explore what might have been if only we had played differently. Each story is important to how we perceive a game, as we balance the conscious with the unconscious.

Annotation by Mike Healey

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Annotation by John Foley

I am acquainted with both players, having captained Matthew when he was a junior playing for my 4NCL team and having known Peter from when we played a memorable game in the Surrey League and subsequently since he joined Kingston Chess Club. Both are talented and even a blitz game between them is likely to be hard fought.

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Annotation by Stephen Moss